


A Slow Listing

by inalasahl



Category: Dallas Stars RPF, Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inalasahl/pseuds/inalasahl
Summary: Jason leans in.





	A Slow Listing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Olichki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olichki/gifts).



“Do you think you’ll go first?” someone asks. There’s a large group of them, drunk, in adjoining rooms with the doors open, a little space to blow off steam where the world can’t see them. It’s a lot of drunk people crammed into a small area and there’s a lot of stumbling into each other and laughing and casual touching that Jason can’t let himself get caught up in, because his plan is basically one, no ever finds out, and two, if they do find out, they can’t ever think you touched them in a gay way.

It is the night before the NHL draft and Jason Spezza is not thinking about Ilya Kovalchuk, the big Russian, who probably will go first. He is also definitely not thinking about Svitov or Chistov or even Mike freaking Komisarek. Let the columnists write their think-pieces on just how far Jason might fall and what that means for Canadian hockey. His mother had hugged him goodbye, before turning him over to the prospect handlers, and whispered, “you’ll always be my Special One.” So Jason doesn’t need to worry about those other guys. He’s done the work and the team that takes him will see it, will be the right team for him.

No, Jason isn’t thinking of those guys. Instead, he’s thinking of the baby-faced strawberry blond he can see sitting on the bed in the other room, nursing a mini bottle of vodka, who had started to blush earlier during an otherwise prosaic discussion of Jagr’s hip-checking abilities. Jason doesn’t think anyone else noticed, but he’s pretty sure the blond noticed him noticing and has been avoiding him ever since.

There’s enough for them all to stress about without adding that to the mix, and maybe he just wants to meet — he takes a deep breath and gives himself permission to think it — a hockey player like him. He grabs a couple of bottles and pushes away from the guy he’s talking to with a vague, “I’m not really thinking about Kovalchuk.”

“That’s his room, you know,” the guy calls after him, but Jason barely registers it.

“Hi, I’m Spezza,” he says, holding out his hand to offer the bottle, which Jason only now realizes is water and probably makes him look like a dork.

"Hemský," the guy says as he takes the bottle and shakes Jason’s hand before Jason has a chance to draw it back. The guy’s fingers are cold, but his grip is strong and Jason bets the guy gives excellent hugs.

The name is familiar if the face isn’t, and it’s with some relief that Jason can offer, “Winger, right? The Czech from the Q?”

“Yeah,” Hemský says.

He still looks a little spooked, so Jason just, just goes for it. “Does that mean you know Jagr?”

Hemský goes red, then pale, and in a voice barely more than a whisper, says, “I don’t know what you mean,” which only makes sense as a response if he _does_ know what Jason meant.

“I’m not trying to jam you up,” Jason says. “I just … noticed. And then I wanted to meet you.”

“Why? You hoping I’ll suck your dick?”

There’s a lot of bitterness in that sentence that makes Jason feel sad, even as the image turns the tops of his ears red. “No, I mean, no, I just thought — I just wanted to meet you.”

“Why?” Hemský asks again, and it’s less bitter, but more confused.

“Because I’ve never met someone like ….”

That’s as far as Jason can take it out loud, but Hemský gets it, because his eyes widen and his face softens as he says, “You should call me Aleš.”

It takes a couple of tries for Jason to repeat the name to both their satisfactions, but it feels nice in his mouth, interesting but with a soft ending.

Aleš falls asleep on Kovalchuk's bed as they talk. People are starting to fall asleep in little heaps and piles everywhere, and Jason imagines for a moment that he could crawl up alongside Aleš and fall asleep, too.

But this isn’t that kind of world, and Jason wants to live up to the faith Aleš is showing in him to take care of both of them. Jason remembers his cold hands and lays a blanket over him before he tiptoes away.

The next day, Aleš goes 13th to the Oilers. Jason goes 2nd overall, to Ottawa. It’s not quite opposite ends of the continent, even if it feels that way.

* * *

It takes them both a year to make the NHL. Then they play against each other a couple of times a year, but there’s no real chance to talk. Sometimes their eyes meet across the neutral zone during warm-ups or across a face-off circle and there’s an expression on Aleš’s face that Jason wants to believe means something. But the two of them are always in full gear, and Jason doesn’t know if Aleš’s hands are still cold, but strong and mostly they just play hockey against each other.

Aleš’s hockey is quite impressive, though. Maybe Jason will get up the courage to call him and tell him that one of these years.

Then there’s the lockout. Aleš goes home, to the Czech Republic, and a couple of times a year becomes no times at all that year. What’s Jason going to say anyway? Remember that one time we talked for a few hours and then never spoke to each other again?

It’s not difficult for professional hockey players to get each other’s phone numbers. The point is Jason doesn’t call.

Aleš does. One rainy afternoon in Binghamton, when it must be later than Jason wants to think about in Pardubice, Aleš calls. The gods of hockey must be looking after them both, because Jason answers the phone to a number he doesn’t recognize.

“This is Aleš Hemský. Do you remember?”

Jason grips the phone back as hard as he wishes he could hang onto Aleš and says, “Yes, Aleš. Yes, I remember. I remember _everything._ ”

There’s a hitch in the breathing at the other end, like maybe Aleš is crying a little. Though it’s hard for Jason to say, there’s no one but his refrigerator to see how red he turns or to hear the way his voice cracks when he asks, “What is it, sweetheart?”

And Jason only thinks he’s brave, because Aleš responds with, “If I sucked your dick, what would you do after?”

“I’d probably want to suck your dick back,” Jason says, and it’s not how he ever pictured himself saying “I love you,” but he guesses it gets the point across, because there’s a squeak on the other end, and a string of Czech ending in his name. “I would worship you,” Jason responds. It can’t ever happen, not so long as they are both professional hockey players, but Jason means it all the same.

“Thank you,” Aleš says, and his breathing sounds calmer.

“Any time,” Jason says, just before Aleš hangs up, and means that too.

Jason’s teammates take him out and he learns to flirt, learns how to make women smile at him even though his ears stick out a mile and he’s got the weirdest laugh in all of North America. But it’s not those women he thinks about when he touches himself at night.

Aleš Hemský comes back from the lockout with scars on the side of his neck that he says are from a random attack in a bar. Jason’s pretty sure he could say exactly which night it happened.

Jason texts the number that called him with the words “any time.” He gets back a solemn promise: “I won’t forget.” and “U2, U kno.”

It's better after that in Ottawa for a time. Dany Heatley comes over in a trade, and suddenly the two of them and Daniel Alfredsson are a line — a nicknamed line — and they can score and win games. They can even go all the way to the Stanley Cup finals.

In Edmonton, though, it’s the beginning of the Dark Decade.

* * *

The Front Office lets Alfie go and Jason doesn't know how to forgive them. Then they make him captain, and heaven knows he’s the best choice, but he can’t forgive them for that either.

He tries his best, to be the kind of leader Alfie was, to be the leader he owes it to his teammates, past and present, to be. He wasn't meant to be captain.

He does his best. He tries to lead, to pass on what he learned when he started in the NHL, to live up to the expectations of Alfie's legacy. But he doesn't have a winger, and the season goes badly, and there's so little time to get them back into a playoff spot, and then — then the Senators trade for Aleš.

"Did you know?" Aleš asks, breathless, the first moment they have alone.

"No, Hemmer,” Jason replies, wrapping his tongue around the nickname, like they're buddies.

Jason says welcome to the team, and fights the urge to sling an arm around him in the locker room. Aleš’s hands are still cold, and Jason wants nothing more than to warm him up, but he's the captain now, and captains don't take advantage.

Aleš scored on them twice in the last game they played against each other, and now he is Jason's and he dangles in a way that Jason understands and it's like having the other half of his brain on the ice feeding him passes, to say nothing of the other half of his heart.

That first game is a loss. But their passes connect so cleanly that the next game they earn three assists apiece, and by the third game, Jason is scoring off a pass from Hemmer. Hemmer swats him on the rear and throws an arm around his shoulder that Jason can’t help lean into, and maybe this is is what content feels like.

* * *

They don't make the playoffs, but it's good anyway. And management tells him they want to keep him, and they say the same thing to Hemmer, who says, out loud, to reporters, that he wants to go where Jason goes.

Ottawa doesn’t catch up enough to make the playoffs, but their line is good anyway. The Front Office says they want to keep him, and they say the same thing to Hemmer, who says, out loud, to reporters, that he wants to go where Jason goes.

“You could stay,” Jason tells him. It will be better in Ottawa than it was in Edmonton, and that’s not something to give up lightly. Jason just can’t stay in Ottawa anymore, not even for Hemmer.

“I want to go where you go,” Aleš says. He looks away. “I mean, if you —“

Even though he’s captain, and he shouldn’t, Jason reaches out. “Of course, I do,” he says. There's not a lot Jason has a choice in, not when he’s asked for a trade, but there's some. The free agency negotiating period starts and he talks to Aleš every day.

Ottawa trades him to Nashville at the draft and he exercises his no-trade clause. He lets his agent handle the irate phone call and waits. Ottawa trades him to Dallas. Dallas has talked to Aleš every day that week, also. Dallas has the Cowboys.

Jason lets the trade happen. Aleš signs with Dallas four hours later.

He takes Aleš to a Cowboys game, where he's photographed smiling, in the sun.

Jason isn't his captain anymore.

Jamie Benn is the captain here, and Dallas is where Jason learns to lean in.

He watches Benn and Seguin jump all over each other and thinks it'll be okay.

Cautiously, at first, in secret, on days when the two of them can be alone in their rental apartments. Aleš gets him alone later in his house, and covers him from head to toe until Jason is drunk on touches, and asks, “Hemmer, can I?” and returns the favor when Aleš nods, kissing over every inch of his body until Aleš is warm, very warm indeed, for the first time since they’ve known each other.

They get three years in Dallas.

* * *

Aleš wants to play where Jason is, but this time the Stars don’t want him back. Aleš talks about retiring, but Jason puts his foot down. “The Canadiens are a good team," Jason tells him. "Jordie's there. He'll look after you."

Aleš snorts. “Am I the one who needs looking after?” He wraps his arms around Jason and makes him promise to let the boys touch him.

"I'm not the one going to a new team."

"I'll be fine," Aleš says. He pulls Jason's head toward him. "We'll be fine."

Jason buries his face in Aleš's neck and offers, "It's okay to be mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you. Of course, I'm not mad at you. I want to keep playing. You want to keep playing. We’ll be in love with each other and play in different conferences, and it will be just like when we were young, except we have ourselves together and we’re going to talk now, every day. You're going to Skype, right? Like you said. If you don't, then I'll be mad at you. But how could I be mad at you for wanting to stay? I want to stay. They just don't want me back."

"How could anyone not want you?"

Aleš ruffles his hair. “Eh, don’t worry. I’ll win the cup and make them regret it.”

Jason picks his head up at that. “Hey!”

Aleš laughs, wraps his arms around Jason and pulls. Jason lets himself fall, and Aleš holds on tight.


End file.
